I take issue with your 'ugly-rate-to-the-bottom' unless you can explain to me how that is any different from anything else capitalism has made cheap enough for the masses to buy?
The micro stock model has worked because pricing was high. It's swung the other way. Fair value is not received in many cases.
If you want Art, you can go put up a gallery, and whine there about how the little people who aren't paying you money don't properly appreciate your vision.
If you want business.... Economics 150, friend: In an efficient market, the marginal cost of a new unit of something is the same as its price. If that's less than what you think is "fair", perhaps that's a signal that (a) there are too many people in this market, don't bother, use your skills and/or equipment elsewhere, or (b) someone else can get snazzy photos to people-who-buy-snazzy-photos more efficiently than you.
The price of photographic equipment, the price of introduction to stock-photo companies, the price of accepting-stock-photo-company-terms-and-conditions, and the price of browsing-stock-photo-catalogs have all fallen dramatically thanks to technology and the Internet. That run-of-the-mill stock photos are now much cheaper ought to be expected.
Surely if "the art" is actually a quality that objectively exists and has value, it will resist attack from those that lack it.
Now we are living exceptional times in that cost of hardware to do good work is so cheap that anyone can have a go at photography / programming / ...